One of the frustrations of blogging, and journaling in general, come to think of it, is the near impossibility of describing everything you want to describe. I've written about this before - how, if you start to retell an event, often, the retelling can seem like it takes more time than the event itself. Hence my respect for good biographers, travel writers, and anybody who can figure out ways to make nonfiction interesting in general...
This also explains why I post a lot about short day trips and one time events - it's not that we don't do anything else, it's just that these little bits are much easier to describe in the time from when I get up at six to when the kids are up and about demanding breakfast at 6:45. So there are always bits that I really want to write about, but stay in the back of my mind because I can't quite get a handle on how to start writing about them.
One such bit is a small steam train located in Jiayang, about a five hour trip on successive buses to the south and east of Chengdu. As the sign promises, it is the world's only out-of-print small steam train still in operation.
The train takes you up an isolated valley to the small mining town of Bagou. It's really an exercise in time travel, as most of the town hasn't changed much since the sixties. The train gets a few tourists, but the town, like most small villages in the Chinese countryside, has lost a great deal of its residents to jobs in the cities. What remains is a bit of a ghost town, and an interesting window into a Mao-era industrial collective.
The view from our guest house.
Another shot of the engine that got us there.
We went with our friends Lei King, a former student, and Jim, who was visiting the campus with a group of students from New York. Here they are at breakfast with a slightly blurry Xander.
The town square and the Chairman Mao Memorial Pavilion. More photos coming in the next post or three.
No comments:
Post a Comment